1. (adj) baffling, elusive, knotty, problematic, problematical, tough
making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe
"a baffling problem"; "I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast"; "a problematic situation at home"
2. (adj) gnarled, gnarly, knotted, knotty, knobbed
used of old persons or old trees; covered with knobs or knots
"gnarled and knotted hands"; "a knobbed stick"
3. (adj) Byzantine, convoluted, involved, knotty, tangled, tortuous
highly complex or intricate and occasionally devious
"the Byzantine tax structure"; "Byzantine methods for holding on to his chairmanship"; "convoluted legal language"; "convoluted reasoning"; "the plot was too involved"; "a knotty problem"; "got his way by labyrinthine maneuvering"; "Oh, what a tangled web we weave"- Sir Walter Scott; "tortuous legal procedures"; "tortuous negotiations lasting for months"
4. (adj) knotty, snarled, snarly
tangled in knots or snarls
"a mass of knotted string"; "snarled thread"
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Definition of 'knotty' 
